Wiki
Wiki: Wiki is a set of related web pages that the user can view and modified whenever he /she has an internet access .wiki pages are organized and linked together in such way to make it easy for the readers to found the information they seek. A wiki is essentially a database created by group rather than individuals. Wiki is a type of content management system (CMS).CMS provides tools to help people to create their own websites. Wiki different from other types of content management system in that the content is created without any defined owner or reader .this means that any visitor to the wiki can change its content if they desire. On other world authors are readers and readers are authors. The benefit of this characteristic is that more people can both read and edit the document, so errors are more likely to catch and fixed .because users can add, modify or delete any materials on the wiki, the modification of some site information will be risky. Thus wiki must insure that inappropriate content are not allowed, but this will required time and effort. As a result, many wiki required authorization, so only the group members can modify content. History: Actually the word “wiki” is a Hawaiian word that mean, it seems to be an appropriate name of what the world want to accomplish. Wikiwikiweb was the first wiki released on March 25, 1995 by Ward Cunninghan. His goal was to use the internet to develop a way for programmers to share ideas about design; this system needs to be quick and easy to use. Now there are many wiki sites for example, Wikipedia which is the most common wiki, wikia and other more. Wikipedia: Wikipedia was on offshoot of the online encyclopedia nupedia.com which found by jimmy wales. Nupedia was established in March, 2000.it established as peer-reviewed encyclopedia with 7 steps editing processes, but these steps are cumbersome so no enough articles were generated at that time. To solve this problem, they generate a wiki that people can post their articles and after these articles are properly vetted they can be moved onto Nupedia. But this is not what happened, Wikipedia was generated more than 18,000 articles at the first year after it released and Nupedia has only 24 articles after three and a half years . Wiki characteristics: v Share and collaborate on document without special training .the user can add, modify or delete materials from wiki easily there is no HTML to learn or any programming .interface to master. v Wiki is a webpage that mean anybody can access to it at any time, from any location. v Decentralization: wiki content is not organized into a hierarchy and it is not as structured as typical content managed by a content management system. v The pages are linked together by hyperlinked the words that have articles related to them. v Can incorporate sounds, movies, pictures these tools can be used to create multimedia presentation and simple digital stories. How wiki works? Technically, a wiki is a combination of a CGI script and a collection of plain text files that allows users to create Web pages “on the fly.” All it takes is a connection to the Internet and a Web browser. When you click a wiki page’s “Edit” link, the script sends the raw text file to your browser in an editable form, allowing you to modify the content of the page. Pressing the “Save” button sends the modified text back to the wiki server, which replaces the existing text file with your changed version for all to see. When you request a wiki page, the script gathers the corresponding text file, changes its marked-up text into HTML, turns user-selected words into hyperlinks, inserts this information into a page template, and sends the result to your browser. Where it used? · Used as repositories for meeting notes. · Artifacts within a wiki folio are easily shared when the wiki is used as presentation tool. · Used by the educators and students to expand the community involvement and interest in their subjects and activities. Category:FYP Category:Web